Of race and Democrats.

Byline: The Register-Guard

The ground hadn't stopped shaking from the toppling of Trent Lott as Senate Republican leader before conservatives began accusing Democrats of selective moral outrage for having ignored the troubled racial past of West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd.

Setting aside the obvious revenge motive, Republicans raise a valid point that should not go unacknowledged by Democrats, who are fond of depicting their party as the soul of racial inclusivity. The reality is that many of the same Democrats who howled with righteous indignation over Lott's recent remarks on race have never even raised a public eyebrow over Byrd's nasty racial past.

In the early 1940s, Byrd was a member of, and recruiter for, the Ku Klux Klan in his state. Byrd eventually quit the Klan and renounced the organization.

But that's not the only blemish on Byrd's record. He waged a14-hour filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which he, along with 20 other Senate Democrats, opposed.

The New York Times once reported a 1946 letter in which Byrd told the Klan's imperial wizard that "the Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia." There is also the matter of Byrd's votes against both Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas - votes that earned Byrd the dubious distinction of being the sole member of the Senate to oppose the only two black Supreme Court nominees in this country's history.

As recently as last year, Byrd told interviewer Tony Snow on Fox News that, "There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time, if you want to use that word." (Byrd later issued a statement apologizing for the statement and saying he "had no intention of casting aspersions on anyone of another race.")

Conservatives are fully justified in asking why Democrats failed to apply the same high moral and political tone they exhibited in the recent debate over Lott when they elected Byrd their majority whip in 1971 - or when they made him majority leader in 1977. Byrd led his party in the Senate until 1989 and still serves as the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, where he is, as one conservative columnist points out, "regularly hailed by fellow Democrats as the conscience of the Senate."

There are important differences, of course, between Byrd and Lott. Byrd has proven his repentance for his past racist associations and offensive remarks by compiling a respectable overall record on race over the last two decades. Lott has not.

While Lott opposed the 1982 extension of the Voting Rights Act, Byrd supported it. While Lott opposed a federal holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr., Byrd voted in favor of it. Lott's record of resistance to civil rights measures over the years was consistent, and showed no signs that he had grown and changed and was fit to be his party's leader in the Senate.

Conservatives would also do well to check out the congressional report card gauging the performance of members of Congress on issues involving race and civil rights. The NAACP's most recent report card gives Byrd a 79 percent rating, compared with 12 percent for Lott.

Nonetheless, Republicans are right to point out that Democrats failed to deal as rigorously and thoroughly with Byrd's racist past as they did with Lott's. If Democrats intend to continue to demand that the Republican Party acknowledge and repudiate its troubling racial past, then they should be willing to do the same.